How to Plan a Fear Factor Event

I read recently teens have a wide array of fears. Fear is often what keeps them from doing right and what tempts them to do wrong. Fear takes them places they don’t want to go and holds them hostage when they want to leave. Fear is something we need to talk about. So that is what got me thinking of doing a “Fear Factor” Event for my youth ministry. Sure, they may have never heard of the show or might have seen some re-runs…but this stuff never gets old.

Here’s your planning kit for Fear Factor:

Challenges

Baby Food Taste Test

Empty a variety of different jars of baby food into individual bowls (make sure you know which is which). Label the bowls with numbers and challenge players to taste every bowl and try and guess what it is. To make it more of a challenge, add some food coloring into the food that might be given away by its color. Make sure to have paper and pencils handy so guests can write their answers on them. Points awarded for participants and CORRECT guesses.

2. Bigger or Better

Some people laugh in the face of gross or gruesome but them go weak in the knees at the thought of something as unassuming as talking to your neighbors. Time to face your social anxiety fears!

In this game you will provide all players (or teams) with a PAPERCLIP. The idea of the game is that they must go around the appointed challenge houses and try and trade it with them for something bigger and better. They can then try and trade that item for something bigger and better to someone else.

Points awarded upon return for best bigger or better.

Iron Toes – Fill a bathtub or kiddie pool with water, marbles, and tons of ICE (you want it to be freezing). The object of the game is for players to stick their foot in the ice water and grab as many marbles as they can in a two minute period. Alternative: Proof is in the pudding: Contestants dig sardines out of chocolate pudding with their toes. Use time limit

Worm Pie

Place ten gummy worms at the bottom of a pie tin (you’ll need to make one for every player). Next, fill the pie tin with whip cream. On the start of go all players must place their hands behind their back and retrieve all 10 gummy worms with their mouth. This game is perfect for PICTURES, so make sure you have your camera ready! Give time limit and give points for each worm “retrieved”.

Alternative: Get live worms. Put them in a large container. Give a time limit of 1 minute. See how many they can “retrieve” and put into a container.

2nd Alternative: Contestants must place their hands in a bucket of live worms and find as many pennies (pre-placed) at the bottom as they can. Give Time Limit of 1 or 2 minutes.

5. Lice Pickers

In this game I gave all the players a pair of tweezers and a cup and challenged them to pick as much lice (rice) as they could out of the shag rug and place them in their cups for extermination. They were not allowed to pick up the lice with their fingers, they had to use the tweezers. Points were awarded by how many lice the players could collect in one minute.

ALTERNATIVE: Instead of tweezers give each of the child a coffee stirrer straw, and have them suck the lice onto it and transfer it to the cup without touching it with anything other than the straw. We did this version at my daughters party and it was a hit. We did not use a shag rug, we mixed the rice in the yarn hair of one of her old cabbage patch dolls.

Pickled-Pigs-Feet Game of Chance:

Make several of each of the following playing cards: 0, 1/4, 1/2, 1, and 2 (i.e. 3 0’s, 6 1/4’S, 3 1/2’s, 3 1’s, and 2 2’s). Have the players sit around a card table and play poker. At the end of the play, each contestant adds up the amount on his/her cards these amounts are the number of pigs’ feet they have to eat. Points awarded for each participant.

Bobbing for Sprouts – Bobbing for apples may be a time-honored tradition, but there’s not much fear to freak-out over there. Try bobbing for “monster eyes” (brussels sprouts) in a “blood bath”(water with red food coloring).

FROG EGG MUNCH

Frog egg munch time! Have each participant roll a die to find out how many servings of “frog eggs” (tapioca pudding with green dye) they have to eat. To easily serve, spoon your green goop onto saltines crackers.

9. Walk on Glass

For a walk on glass competition, break several bags of potato chips into pieces of different sizes, including smaller crumbs and larger pieces. Pour the chips on a flat surface, such as flattened cardboard boxes or a plastic tarp. Keep the area hidden from the teens until you’re ready to play. Blindfold the teens and tell them that they’re about to walk across broken glasses. This is a simple activity that doesn’t involve food, but still gets the teens into the Fear Factor feel.

Gross Food Challenge

Go to an “ethnic” food marketplace to purchase tongue, hoof, leg, fish…whatever. Provide a variety. Please make sure they are cooked and safe to eat. Points awarded for all the brave souls.

Hot Sauce Challenge

Who could take a small spoonful of hot sauce. Points for trying. Extra points if no water/liquid was needed afterwards.

No need to tell them. Show them that you aren’t scared to eat a worm. Bravery of anyone that tries gets points. They must all eat at ONCE, so the gig is not up.

Devotional

A few years ago, there was survey done about the biggest fears of youth. And it was interesting, it had nothing to do with some of the challenges you will face tonight or have seen on re-runs of Fear Factor. They were much deeper…here are a few examples…

Fear # 10: “I will never have a happy marriage and family.”

Fear # 9: “Someone I know or love will die of AIDS (maybe me!).”

Fear # 8: “I feel like I must have sex to be accepted.”

Fear # 7: “I cannot find time to do everything.”

Fear # 6: “I can’t tell right from wrong.”

Fear # 5: “Peer pressure scares me.”

Fear # 4: “I (or someone I know) will be a victim of violence or crime.”

Fear # 3: “I will not be able to make it financially.”

Fear # 2: “I can’t get a good education.”

Fear # 1: “Something bad may happen to my family.”

(Leadership Journal – Thom Rainer)

It is interesting that God does not leave us with our fears. That would make Him a horrible Father to us. Can you imagine me saying to one of my kids “Oh, you are scared of that giant scary monster little girl…well, deal with it”. No, my desire is to protect my child, help them…and relinquish their fears.

And that is what God does in the Bible. In fact, there are at least 365 passages (one for each day of the year ) can be found in the Bible that tell us to not be afraid, to not worry or be anxious, to look to Christ for strength and comfort, and be transformed to have a worshipful fear and awe of God.

Just look at all the passages where God told people not to be afraid: Joshua when he was leading the people of Israel, Mary & Joseph when they saw an angel, Jesus to his disciples, Paul to Timothy, and the list goes on…

Whatever your fears may be – let me just leave you with this – God is the answer to your fears.

If it is your future – God has plans for you before you were even born.

If it is peer pressure or choosing right from wrong – God’s Word is clear in what decisions you should make

If it is death – God tells us that we no longer have to fear death – because if we trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior – death has no more power of us…Jesus defeated death on the cross.

Whether big or small, don’t let your fears stop you. With God in your life, you can overcome them. And as we go to houses to do the fear factor challenges…let each challenge be a reminder of how you can overcome fear…with God on your side.

Church Involvement

Rather than just having all the tasks at the church or in the youth facility, take it to the church. What I mean is, have some people in your church host some fun fear factor challenges. Make it easier on them by providing a supply list. If you want to make it even easier, give them the supplies. When the fear factor teams are made, supply each team with a map to each of the houses. Have each team rotate houses, and have the host homes do the same thing for each group.

Scoring/Score-sheet

This is totally up to you, but award points based on participation and completion of tasks. Reward those that are brave enough to eat, grab, hold, or do whatever that is required in these challenges. They deserve some points for their team, and a towel.

Quick Recap of Plan

Contact host homes for fear factor challenges

Begin working on challenge list

Re-Contact host homes that have accepted invitation – give them detailed description of fear factor challenges that you have picked.

One thought on “How to Plan a Fear Factor Event”

[…] leave. Fear is something we need to talk about. Grade: A. I tweaked this a little and did a “Fear Factor” event instead and used it as a platform to discuss their fear. This event was one of the highlights of […]